Sensor platforms, also referred to as nodes or virtual nodes, share sensor information across communications links that are generally not managed by the application at the physical layer. As the number of nodes increases, the volume of traffic increases, taxing the bandwidth capacity of communications links and the computational capacity of the nodes to process the shared sensor information. Prior art solutions assign groups of nodes into smaller operating groups or subnets. Typically this assignment of operating groups or subnets is performed manually. Nodes within a subnet share sensor information, while nodes in different subnets do not directly share information with each other.
Generally subnets are designed to be small enough that sharing sensor data between nodes does not overwhelm the processing capability of any individual node or the communications links between nodes. If the sensor bandwidth is not correctly anticipated or the subnets are not properly designed, nodes can become overwhelmed with sensor data and associated data communications links between nodes can become congested. This can result in delays of important sensor data reaching a node or in the data not being communicated to the node at all.
A target tracker receives sensor data about one or more targets from multiple nodes and fuses the sensor data about common targets from the multiple nodes. Typically the target tracker is configured statically and attempts to keep up with the flow of sensor reports it receives. If more reports are received than the target tracker can process, the target tracker will fall behind, delaying the assimilation of sensor reports into useful tracking data. If the flow of sensor reports is sustained at a greater rate than can be processes, the target tracker will drop reports. Important sensor data therefore would not be fused into the tracking data for one or more tracked targets.
Advantages over the prior art are herewith provided in the following disclosure.